A Late Night Interview
by NeoNails
Summary: 4th in NEO storyline. Jamie wakes up from a bad nightmare and sneaks into the kitchen. He ends up running into two other Xmembers. Jamiecentric, because the poor kid gets no attention. R & R!


Another one-shot, but this one will be largely Jaime-centric. Okay, there is a _smidge_ of Scogue in this… But this is about _Jaime_, so if there's anything like that, it will definitely be put on the backburner.

**Timeline:** Takes place around the time of _Joyride_ (the episode in which the X-newbies took some of the X-vehicles for a spin) and the other episode, which I currently forget, in which Jaime sneaks into the training room's control room while the other newbies are in said training room. The trouble with Apocalypse hasn't happened just yet.

**Summary:** Jaime wakes up in the middle of the night. He goes down to the kitchen, getting a snack and thinking to himself. Two other students drop by soon after, cookies are shared, and a bond is formed.

**Rating:** Actually, this'll be my first K+. Hey, c'mon, he's a 13-year-old. Okay, there maybe one or two curse words, but nothing more. I happen to pride myself on trying to stay as in-character as possible.

**Disclaimer:** How hard is it to understand? Do you _really_ think X-men would be off-air for so long if I owned it? I mean, look at the crap they've got on the WB- pardon me, _CW_ (whatever)- everything's get remade! Looney Toons- that is _not_ the loveable cartoon characters we all grew up with. They look freakish. And don't talk to me about that anime stuff. That would be gone in a flash if it was up to me.

$4$

**A Late-Night Interview**

Among the students and teachers, it was well-known in Professor Xavier's Mansion that the rooms were soundproof. That was the only reason no one heard Jamie's scream one stormy night.

It could be considered common for most of the students to have nightmares, so even if someone _had_ heard the 13-year-old, it wasn't like there would be a big commotion to see how he was doing. Because of their genetic mutations and "powers", many of his classmates had no family because of the division it caused. There were two sides- either you supported the mutants or you wanted them gone.

But Jamie was too young to really pay attention to something like politics, even if he was the 'hot' topic on most political leaders' agendas. He wasn't as naïve as the other 'newbies' thought he was; he knew what was going on in the world and how it related to him, he just wanted to stay a kid little longer.

Of course, he wasn't concerned with any of that at the moment. Unless his glow-in-the-dark clock was lying to him, it looked like it was quarter of two. In the morning. There was no way that could be good for a growing mutant.

So, he got up. There was no going back to bed now, he was too jittery from his nightmare. He remembered that his mother always told him a glass of milk and a cookie were the best medicine for falling back asleep. Jamie missed his mother, at times.

He did have family, in the X-men. He wasn't sure how happy they would be to find him up late foraging for baked goods, Ms. Monroe and Mr. Logan especially, but he knew they supported him.

He snuck into the kitchen as quietly as a thirteen-year old with duplication powers that hadn't yet been controlled yet could. He kept one eye on the fridge and the other on the door. Jaime still remembered how much trouble the other kids got into when they took the X-jet for a spin. Granted, sneaking around the kitchen wasn't _quite_ the same thing, but he had a feeling Mr. Logan still recalled his punishment of waxing and cleaning and wouldn't be very lenient.

He pulled the half-empty 2-gallon milk carton out of the fridge, momentarily struck by not only the weight of the thing, but also by how fast it went. Jamie grew up with only his mother as company. While they didn't have as much money as the mansion, what food they _did _have just didn't disappear like it seemed to when there were only two people in the house.

Concentrating, he duplicated himself. Jamie smiled triumphantly. He had _some _control, at least. He poured the milk into one of the glasses he took from the cabinet while the clone opened the cookie jar and put two on a plate.

"Think you could get me a cookie?"

Jamie nearly jumped out of his skin. Without meaning to, another four Jamies duplicated. Standing in front of him was none other than Rogue. "Sorry, kid," she muttered, pulling up a chair.

Focusing, he managed to take back the five clones. Once everything was back in order, and his heart rate had finally gone down a little, he told her, "I'm not a kid." While it was true that Jamie kind of feared Rogue for her powers, he wasn't going to put up with being called a kid. Okay, he was thirteen, but Jubilee just turned fifteen two weeks ago! She was practically as old as he was.

She shrugged flippantly. "Sorry," Rogue squinted at him through the darkness. "Are you wearing… Christmas pajamas?" Jamie felt his blush down to his toes.

"Uh…"

The lights turned on abruptly, blinding Jamie. Rogue, too, judging by her groan. "What's going on here?" Jamie tried blinking, but because of the brightness he still couldn't really make anything out.

"Was that _really_ needed, Summers?" He heard Rogue drawl. _Scott?_ Jamie was surprised. He was the school's leader. Why would he be up at 3 in the morning?

The lights turned back off. "Sorry," he heard Scott say. Jamie's eyes had just grown accustomed to the light, and now he couldn't see in the dark. Feeling around, he found his glass of milk and slid into the closest chair.

"So… why are you two up?" Jamie asked, a tad uncomfortable. As he stared into his glass of milk as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he realized he forgot to grab his cookies. Before he could get them, Rogue stood up and grabbed his cookies, and took two more out and two plates.

Scott stood as well and walked to the fridge. "For about a week," the teen leader explained patiently as he poured to glasses with milk, "Rogue and I have been unable to sleep because of nightmares. So, every night since then, we get up and have a glass of milk and a cookie. Doesn't always work, but it's something to help forget."

Jamie had heard things about the two X-men. Rogue had been abandoned by her real family and adopted by another mutant who was working with Mystique to use Rogue's powers once they surfaced. Scott had lost his parents in a tragic plane crash, and had always thought he'd lost his little brother as well until Cerebro found him several months ago.

"You guys get nightmares, too?" he asked. He hadn't looked up at the two just stared into his glass.

"'Course, short stuff," Rogue replied with what Jamie was pretty sure was a smirk. She handed Scott the cookie and he handed her the glass. Jamie would have corrected her about the 'short stuff' line, but the way she said it made it sound less of an insult and more… motherly.

"Neither of us had the best family life," Scott continued kindly. Rogue snorted skeptically. She sat back in her seat, crossing her arms. Jamie eyed the two cookies Rogue had given him.

"How many people here _have_ had a good family life?" Jamie whispered. He was bitter, he admitted it. He didn't want to think about what could have happened if he hadn't had the genetic mutation that created their powers. He'd be stuck in some crappy foster care center in the middle of Kansas.

"There's Jean," Rogue offered half-heartedly. "Ah mean, isn't not lahke there's some rule that you have to have a sucky past in order to join the mansion. Only, ya know, the X gene. And judging by what the Prof. is always going on about how more mutants are being born each day, Ah have feeling we're not as alone as you might think."

Jamie continued to stare in the milk. "I wish I could say my parents deserted me because of my powers,"

Scott looked at the younger student sharply. "Don't say that. You don't mean it."

"I do," Jamie said, finally staring up. He glanced from Rogue to Scott. "At least then I would know why I was apparently destined to lose both my parents before I turned ten."

"Hey," Rogue snapped. "There's no reason to get pissy. You think mah life was a big bowl o' cherries? Ah don't remember my real family and the adopted one I _did _have was only there because that manipulative wench wanted to use me against the rest of humanity." Rogue sighed, trying to collect herself.

"That's why the Prof. brought us here. We can learn to survive as a family and hopefully get over our past." She continued quietly.

Jamie laughed dryly. He sipped from his glass and broke a piece of cookie. "We should start a twelve-step program. 'You and Your Screwed-Up Family: How to Survive'." He ate the cookie, and broke the rest into more pieces. It was the same way his mom used to eat her cookies when they couldn't sleep.

"More like, we should make a club," Scott suggested, smiling. "We could recruit new kids by holding interviews."

"They'd have to be late-night interviews," Rogue added. "After all, that's what we're doin', right? They'd have to be able to put up with the lack of sleep."

Jamie nodded, and smiled. "But they don't have to have a screwed-up family. They've just gotta be able to put up with those of us who do."

"I'm pretty sure that won't be too hard." Scott replied. "That basically includes everyone here in the Mansion."

The trio smiled, falling into a relatively comfortable silence as the finished their snacks. "Do you guys know what really happened to my family?" Jamie asked, quietly. It was only fair they learned. All the new students knew of their past, he might as well tell them his.

Scott shook his head and Rogue shrugged. "Ah always thought you still had a family, truthfully," Rogue confessed. "You're welcome to tell us, but you don't hafta, if you don't wanna." She smiled, but it wasn't a real smile, it was more a grim expression one wore when one knew that what the other person would say would be painful.

Jamie knew that look; he knew it well. It was the same look on his mother's face when she found her husband's belongings gone and what he saw on his aunt's face when the doctor told her the news about his mother. He even imagined it was on his own face, right before his aunt told him that she wouldn't be able to take care of him.

It was that look that made Jamie tell them his story. How, at four, his dad left him and his mom for dead. How, at six, he watched his mother slowly die from lung cancer, which he later found out was most likely caused by his dad's smoking when they were together. How, at twelve, his aunt told him that she lost her job and wouldn't be able to take care of him anymore. And, finally, a day later, a bully in his old school pushed him down, causing two more Jamies to appear.

It was hard, telling his story, but it was better this way. They never interrupted, never said a word. They waited for him to continue when he choked up about the last time he saw his mom, and the funeral after words. They didn't chastise him when he said nasty things about his dad for leaving them. They just… listened.

And, after the glasses were washed out and the dishes put away nearly an hour later, Scott put a hand on Jamie's shoulder. "So, about those late-night interviews…" He trailed off, smiling at the younger boy.

"You're in."

$4$

Never, in all my history in have I ever written such a sad, bittersweet fic. I'm telling you right now- this was not what I had intended to write, but… I'm happy I wrote it.

This was mostly done on a whim, and these 5 pages or so were whipped up all in one day. Usually, I don't work like that. I _usually_ have the habit of starting something up, leaving it from anywhere to two days to a month, then finishing it up in chunks. Nope, this one was all done in one sitting. Well, not counting getting up every so often for lunch or dinner or what have you.

I'm actually pretty damn proud of myself right now. Not only did I only use, like, _3_ curse words this entire fic (well, not counting the 'damn' I just wrote), but this was almost completely Jamie. I actually focused on something _other_ than Scott or Rogue!

Okay, granted, they _are_ in here, but… they're not in the limelight. It's all Jamie.

Now, I've got two options, and I want you guys to tell me: should I write a one-shot on how Scott and Rogue first ran into each other in the kitchen, _or_ should I do a one-shot on another X-men character?

I've always really liked Kurtty(Kurt/Kitty), and seeing what I've done with this one, I think I could handle Kurt, and Kitty's Valley Girl 'tude always used to crack me up, so…

If you want a different character, specify. If no one responds/answers, well, you'll have to put up with my decision: P


End file.
